House of Commons
Parliament

The Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has apologised to the family of a one-year-old boy who died after doctors and the 111 helpline failed to diagnose his problems.

William Mead, from Cornwall, died in 2014 from blood poisoning.  

Responding to an urgent question in the House of Commons, Mr Hunt said although all health systems would "inevitably suffer some tragedies", the issues had "significant implications" for the NHS and he was determined lessons would be learned.

He offered his "sincere condolences" to the family:

Read more.

The Daily Politics

The Daily Politics

Nick Eardley
BBC Scotland Westminster correspondent

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he thinks Scotland will leave the UK if there is a vote in favour of leaving the European Union.  Speaking to French radio, Mr Blair said he hopes and thinks the UK will vote to stay in the bloc in a referendum to be held before the end of 2017.

But he added: “In my opinion, if Great Britain, if the United Kingdom votes to leave Europe, Scotland will vote to leave the United Kingdom.”

Earlier, the UK government tabled a motion in the House Commons setting out some of the rules for the referendum.  There has been speculation Prime Minister Cameron is preparing for a vote as soon as June if his renegotiation plans are agreed with European leaders next month.

The government has published the proposed form of the ballot paper for the EU referendum. It is in draft regulations laid before Parliament today on the conduct of the national poll.

Headed "Referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union", the ballot paper reminds voters to put a cross in only one box. It has the question: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?" followed by the two options: "Remain a member of the European Union", or "Leave the European Union". 

The placing of the regulations in Parliament has fuelled speculation that the referendum could be in June.

House of Commons
Parliament

The Justice Secretary is denying a Conservative MP's accusation that he's gone soft on criminals. Right-winger Philip Davies claimed his fellow Tory Michael Gove had "gone native" since taking over the Justice Department and had adopted a left-wing agenda which was not tough enough on criminals. Mr Gove had previously reversed a plan to ban inmates from receiving books.

The Justice Secretary Michael Gove hit back in the Commons:

House of Commons
Parliament

The SNP's health spokeswoman and surgeon Philippa Whitford has spoken during the "Urgent Question" debate on emergency calls, following an outcry over the death of a baby from sepsis.

The MP said young children were very hard to asses and that it was "particularly hard to pick up clues over the phone".

She said NHS Direct (the forerunner to the 111 service) used to be based in out-of-hours centres, where a call handler could pass the phone to a doctor if they were unsure what to advise. She said  111 callers should be dealt with in local areas, not call centres.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Jim Harra, the director-general of business tax at the HMRC, told the World at One people were over-estimating the amount of tax due by looking at Google's total sales in Britain and including in that, profits accrued to its overseas operations (which are exempt).

He added that he thought the regulatory environment was changing and that companies were realising they could not carry on the way they had in the past. 

Tom Edgington
Radio 4 Political Producer

Speaking for the first time, the Head of Business Tax at HMRC, Jim Harra, defends the way that taxes have been collected from Google in an interview with Radio 4's World At One:

Norman Smith
Assistant political editor

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, William Mead's family

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt now rises to respond to an urgent question from Heidi Alexander on the death of the baby William Mead.

William Mead died of blood poisoning, known as septicaemia, following a long standing chest infection.

An NHS England report found that William would not have died if NHS 111 call handlers had identified the seriousness of his condition.

The report also says that GPs failed to recognise that the child was suffering from sepsis.

Select Committee
Parliament

UK Athletics' Ed Warner says he is "delighted" that Qatar's bids for the 2017 and 2019 World Athletics Championships will be investigated.

Conservative MP Damian Collins asks him to identify the "very senior person in the IAAF hierarchy" who told Mr Warner that "certain members of the IAAF council were being called upstairs one by one to a hotel suite, to be given a brown envelope, supposedly full of money".

Mr Warner refuses to discuss "who said what to whom".

"Was it Lord Coe who told you?" Mr Collins asks, but Mr Warner repeats that he is not prepared to say.

BBC News Channel

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has written to the chancellor asking for more detail on the tax deal that was done with Google concerning its tax liabilities in the UK. 

Speaking on the BBC News Channel, Mr McDonnell said Labour had also launched a petition where members of the public could express their views. Mr McDonnell called for "more openness and transparency about how the deal was arrived at and what it includes" and he called on George Osborne to "be straight with us, be open, transparent and come clean" about the process. 

He added that people need to know whether the deal was fully signed off and he warned that the British deal undermined the OECD's  international efforts to crackdown on tax avoidance.

Select Committee
Parliament

UK Anti-Doping chief Nicole Sapstead says that criminalising the supply of steroids and other drugs is "not an area that we would necessarily support".

She says that the use of performance-enhancing drugs in competitive sport "is fraud and it's cheating" but adds: